Romeo and What's her name
by FreeFall Sunsoar
Summary: [Metal+Quick shonen-ai fluff] Metal and Quick share a romantic moment with Shakespeare


  
Title: Romeo and What's-Her-Name  
Author : FreeFall SunSoar  
Pairing : Quickman + Metalman  
Rating : PG  
Summary : Metal and Quick share a moment or two.  
Disclaimers : Rockman doesn't belong to me. I'm not really sure who it belongs to ... Capcom I suppose.  
Warnings : None really. Slashy vibes if that irks you. 

Authors Note : A quick one shot written late in the night. My first Rockman fic too. Huzzah! Some cute, fluffy stuff. =3 Comments and constructive criticism can be sent to freefall_sunsoar@hotmail.com. I like getting responses. Please let me know what you think

Unless my hearing is starting to go, I'm pretty sure there's someone watching me. At first I thought maybe I was just being paranoid. After all, leaves rustle in thw wind. Twigs can be snapped by squirrels or birds.

Though trees, I'm also fairly certain, never sneeze.

"You can come out now Quickman," I called blandly to my stalker, "I know you're there."

Abruptly there was another loud rustling and a string of muttered curses. Perhaps he thought he had been doing a fairly good job of going unnoticed, or that I had been too preoccupied lately to see it. But I had noticed. Or rather, I began to notice after it was brought to my attention.

"You know he's been following you around for days now."

"Who? Quickman?"

"Yeah. Skulking around in corners, watching out of the corner of his eye. Y'know, generally stalking you."

After that I felt like an idiot for missing the glaringly obvious. He had been skulking and watching. Sometimes I wonder how Elecman got to be so damned perceptive. 

I never saw him jump out of the tree, but the heavy thud of metallic feet clued me in; I let him think that my book was far more interesting than he was. I didn't look up at him as he shuffled a little closer. Instead I chose to focus on the words in front of me; I was getting to a good part.

"Uh, hi Metal."

"Hi."

My resolve to fake interest in my book quickly began to crumble, and I risked a glance upwards. He was smiling, three quarters of his face being taken up be teeth, but instantly I could tell it was one of those fake smiles he used when he was trying to act like everything was perfect. Something must be wrong. 

His cheeks were steadily reddening, probably over the embarrassment of being caught so blatantly, and I stared blankly at him as he struggled to think of something to make the moment a little less awkward for him.

"Whatchya readin'?" he asked innocently, taking a few more careful steps towards me.

Ah, a little small talk first then.

"Shakespeare," I replied evenly, "It's really quite good, though the language is a little hard to understand sometimes."

I enjoyed the challenge of William Shakespeare's writing. As Robot Masters living in Japan, none of us really bothered speaking anything other than Japanese. It is our native language I suppose, and we haven't really had much of a reason to speak anything else. We are programmed, however, to be fluent in several different languages, and English is one of them. Still, even though we are theoretically fluent in standard English, it is still a language of complex casualness that is difficult to grasp.

Shakespeare is by far the most difficult and intriguing piece of English literature I've ever read. It was written so long ago that the words and phrases he uses are little more than gibberish by today's standards, but I love it. He writes of so much beauty and tragedy that I can't help but wonder, if he were alive today, would he write about Wiley and his Robot Masters, and our battles against Rockman?

"Oh yeah, I've heard about him. Shadow was reading something he wrote a while ago. What was it called ... uh, Romeo and, uh, y'know ... what's-her-name, err -"

"Juliet?" I suggested helpfully, a smirk tugging at my lips.

Sometimes I just had to stop and wonder at Quick's naive attitude. While he was one of the most experienced and powerful Masters, sometimes he reminds me of a child. Always laughing and joking, asking questions about the simplest things that amazed him for days. Some of the others thought him to be a little simple, perhaps even mentally unbalanced, but I choose to see it as enthusiasm.

It was a rare quality amongst our ranks, and I find it refreshing amidst so much hatred and violence.

"Yeah, yeah, that's the one," he crowed triumphantly, "It was a love story, but Shadow said it ended badly and then he sulked for days. Which one are you reading? Does it have a happy ending?"

"Hamlet, but somehow I doubt it will end well, " I chuckled quietly, and Quick started to smile genuinely, "Most of Shakespeare's works are tragedies. But I'm sure that you're not out here to ask about my books," I paused, thinking on how to word this correctly, "Is something on your mind Quick, you've been acting a little weird around me lately. Have ... I done something? Are you angry with me?"

"No, no," he replied hastily, the smile being replaced by a thoughtful frown "It's nothing like that at all. You haven't done anything Metal, it's just ..."

He paused briefly as I had, thinking about his words.

"... I had this dream."

"Uh huh."

"About you ..."

"Oh."

Oh indeed. It was a well known fact amongst the Robot Masters that over the past few weeks Quick Man had been developing rather strange, prophetic dreams. Wily doesn't know about it yet, though I'm sure one of the seventh or eighth armies will blab to him eventually; there all so blindly loyal. Sometimes we wonder if they were given the capacity to think for themselves at all. I fear for him when the old man finds out; who knows what he will do with Quick.

There had been three dreams so far that had come true. The first involved a secret, and quite surprising, relationship between Crash Man and Star Man, who were both so quiet and discreet that no one had even noticed they were acting differently until they told us about them. We had thought that Quick's dream was just a weird fluke, and that he had picked up something between the pair subconsciously without even realizing it. We laughed and dismissed it.

When his second dream about Rock's surprise attack on one of Wily's labs came to pass only two days after, no one was laughing. How or when the Blue Bomber had found out about the remote laboratory in the mountains was a complete mystery to all of us, but Wily chose to blame the sudden defeat on Plant Man and Snake Man, who were supposed to be on guard duty.

We haven't seen either of them in weeks. The price of failure as a Robot Master is high, and Wily hasn't been feeling very lenient lately. It wouldn't surprise me if they were scrapped.

When Quick then predicted the announcement that construction of the Ninth Army was underway, few doubted him. The old man is as determined as ever to destroy Rockman, and I fear that if this new army is as unsuccessful as the others, none of us will be active long enough to see the Tenth.

There was a fourth dream that I think only Elecman, Ringman and I know about. It hasn't been confirmed, but a lot of us have had the sneaking suspicion for a long time. Quick had come to breakfast one morning looking rather pale and decidedly disturbed. When Elec asked him what was wrong, he mumbled something about how his dreams should start coming with an NC-17 rating. He wouldn't give us all the gory details, and I thank him for sparing us, but all he would say was that it involved Forte and a particular robot that he was supposed to be destroying.

None of us wants to ask Forte whether it is true or not, but judging by how suspicious he's been acting lately, I'd say something is definitely going on. And for his sake, I hope Wily never finds out.

So you could say I was a little curious when Quick said he had dreamt about me.

"What happened?" I asked him softly as I patted the grass next to me. He immediately was at my side and flopped onto the ground ungracefully.

"I ... don't wanna tell you."

Is it that bad, Quick? The tightness of his lips and the way he fidgets tells me it is. As does the way he can't look directly at me.

"What happened?"

"You ... you died."

For a long time neither of us said nothing. He continued to stare blindly into the horizon while his words were taking their time registering completely with me. I died in his dream? It was unsettling to say the least, considering that the last dreams he had all came to pass within days of their wake.

I blinked, looking back and forth between the ground, my book, and Quick. Morbid curiosity got the better of me.

"How?" I asked quietly, the inside of my mouth feeling as dry as sand.

"I don't wanna talk about it," he mumbled, shaking his head, "I just wanna forget it ever -"

I cut him off by placing my hand on his knee in an effort to calm him ; I could feel him shaking under my palm, "Please Quick, I'd like to know. How ... how did I die?"

"I ... I'm not really sure how, but ... I ... I found you."

"You found me?"

He nodded shakily, "Yes. I was running, though a really dark hallway, but there was a light at the end of it. I thought that if I could make it to the end I would be safe, so I kept running. But just as I reached the end, I tripped over something, and I fell. When I looked back I saw ... I saw ..."

It did not take a genius to realize what he had tripped over. I rubbed his knee gently with my fingertips, encouraging him to continue speaking. He seemed to take some comfort in the contact, and I had to admit that I did as well.

"You were just lying there, like you had gone to sleep in the hallway or something. I thought that maybe you really were just sleeping, and I crawled over to try and wake you up, but ..."

Without warning Quick suddenly turned to me and lurched forward, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I thought he might cut off my air. He pushed his face into my chest roughly, and began to sob. At first I was too surprised to do anything, but as his body began to shake with the effort of crying, I cautiously put my arms around him and tried my best to soothe him.

I'm not really good at these kinds of things though. 

I could feel tears beginning to soak through my shirt as he cried loudly; Quick had always been a rather emotional Bot. He had the tendency to go off over the smallest off things, especially things that were sad or tragic, and I was surprised that he himself hadn't been wailing over Romeo and Juliet. Pharaoh had labelled him a 'cry baby' when he balled at the end of Old Yeller. Truthfully though, I thought it was rather endearing.

"There was so much blood," he choked out between heavy sobs, punctuated by the occasional hiccup, "Half your stomach had been blown away, and there was blood everywhere. But there was a smile on your face, y'know, like you were thinking about something happy when you were dying, and I can't get that picture out of my head."

The description of my death scene made me wince, and Quick seemed to curl around me like a defensive shield as his embrace tightened protectively.

"I don't want you to die Metal," he whimpered quietly, "I ..."

It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but whatever it was, the words were too stubborn to come out. So for the moment he was content to just sit there clutching me like I was going to go to pieces if he let go.

"I'm not going to die Quick," I tried to sound reassuring, but it was hard, especially after the other dreams.

He looked up at me, eyes wide and brimming with tears, lower lip quivering. I had this sudden, overwhelming urge to touch his face.

"It'll be alright," I said as I gently grazed his cheek with my fingers, "I'm not going anywhere."

His skin was so very soft, like silk sheets or rose petals. Blech, that was cheesy. But it felt so real, just like a human. Wily had really done better work with the earlier armies. After the Fourth generation, he had stopped focusing on realism and detail in favour of seeing how much weaponry he could cram into a single robot. It was kind of sad really.

Quick seemed to calm slightly, leaning into my palm as it rested on his face. A small sigh of contentment escaped his lips; he almost smiled again. His protective grip loosened, though he would not let me go. 

"Promise me," he spoke up suddenly, "Promise me that you aren't going to die Metal."

How can you make a promise like that?

So I didn't really say anything. I couldn't promise something like that without seriously damaging him. What if I really was slated to die in the near future? He'd think that I had lied to him, and Quick would never forgive me. I don't think I like the idea of him hating me forever.

"I'll try to stay alive Quick," was what I settled on, "I wouldn't want to leave you alone."

It was true. I didn't want to leave him alone, not for anything. He was my dearest friend, one of my only friends amongst so many hate-filled killing machines. If anything happened to him, I don't know what I'd do. A familiar sensation began to pool in my stomach, one that usually cropped up when the two of us were in such close proximity. There is something more than friendship between us I think, but I can never quite put a name to the feelings I have for him.

Elec teases me about it all the time, insisting that I'm in love with Quick.

I'm not sure though. I don't even know if we are capable of such an emotion, being robots and all. But even if we were, how would I know? I've never been in love before. I don't know what it feels like. How can I accurately say, 'Yes, I love him' when I can't be sure what it is that I'm feeling. Whatever it is though, I like it, and I'm not about to let whatever we have just fall away from us, Wily and those dreams be damned.

Now he was smiling, and this time it was one of those warm, genuine smiles that are so rare to see. Almost infectiously, I smiled with him.

"Really?" he asked me, almost unwilling to believe of an alternative.

"Really," I answered firmly, "So long as I have a say in it, I'm not going to be right here with you," I paused briefly, "Always."

"Always," he happily murmured in echo, and his smile seemed to grow.

I shifted slightly, allowing him to crawl up onto my lap. His arms - in an almost humorously timid approach - wrapped themselves loosely around my neck, and he pressed himself against me. I could feel his robotic heart thudding in joy through his chest. His head rested in the juncture of my neck and shoulder, allowing his breath to tingle and tease along my synthetic skin.

If it were possible, I would like to stay here with him like this forever, just like I said. Away from Wily and the other Robot Masters, away from Rock and his justice. Just away, with Quick. 

"Will you read to me?"

I was caught off guard by his request. "Read to you?"

"From your book," he motioned to my novel, which had fallen forgotten onto the grass beside me, "I wanna hear about Hamlet."

"It's hard to understand Quick," I warned his as I picked it up, "The language is really vague. I don't really understand half of what he's saying."

"I don't care. It could be written in backwards French, and I wouldn't care. I just ... I wanna hear you read it. I .. I like the sound of your voice."

He was blushing, and trying to hide it.

"Okay, if you want."

I picked up the book, and went to the page I had left off on. If he asked me to, I would have read it all evening, until the next morning.

"To be, or not to be, that is the question:   
Whether'tis nobler in the mind to suffer   
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,   
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles   
And by opposing them. To die - to sleep,   
No more; and by a sleep to say we end   
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks   
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation   
Devoutly to be wish'd ...... "

Quick settled against me again, content to listen quietly as I read to him. The feeling of his breath and the warmth that he spooned against me was indescribably pleasant, and I think I might have been blushing a little bit too. Screw those dreams of his. There was no way I was going to die and leave this behind. I told him I'd be there, and I intend it.

He sighed, and I felt him smile against my shoulder. If I'm not in love with him, then I don't want to know what love is.

FIN


End file.
